Friday, January 4, 2013

With you always, but only to suppress you

(First published in The Pioneer dated December 26, 2012)

RAJESH SINGH

On Sunday morning, a young protester at India Gate asked me: “Where is
the Prime Minister? Do we even have a Prime Minister?” I had no answer.
On Monday, Mr Manmohan Singh made a televised address to the nation
which proved that we have a Prime Minister, but only in name. In a bland
lecture that is eminently forgettable, Mr Singh said the massive
protests which have erupted over the gang rape and torture of a young
girl in a moving bus in Delhi were justified and understandable. We
didn’t need the Prime Minister to tell us that. We needed him to tell us
who has been held accountable for the shocking and sad incident and
what immediate steps is his Government taking to ensure that rapists are
punished severely. Mr Singh’s message to the country was worse than
what a dithering bureaucrat would have said.

Incidentally, the Prime Minister did not forget to mention that, as a
father of three daughters, he felt the pain of the victim and her
family. It has suddenly become fashionable for politicians to remind the
people that they have daughters. A few days earlier, the thoroughly
inept Union Minister for Home Affairs Sushil Kumar Shinde too mentioned
at a Press conference that he had daughters and thus could appreciate
the anger among the protesters. Not satisfied with that, he pointed to
his deputy, Mr RPN Singh, and disclosed that the latter too had
daughters — and we assume that he too, therefore, felt the pain as
deeply as the senior Minister did. A few days earlier to Mr Shinde’s
media briefing, prominent Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien
expressed his own bit of anguish over the Delhi incident and reminded
the audience that he too was the father of a daughter. Of course, he had
not felt the same pain over the Park Street rape case in West Bengal
some months ago in the Trinamool rule, nor did he even squeak when the
police officer investigating the case was unceremoniously shunted out
and the rape victim made to undergo all sorts of humiliation.

Having daughters, or being a woman, does not seem to have made any
difference in the attitude of public figures towards heinous crimes
against women, and so they look hypocritical when they shed (crocodile)
tears. Not too long ago, Ms Pratibha Patil towards the end of her tenure
as President had reduced to life imprisonment the death sentence
awarded to a convict who had raped and murdered a six-year old girl in
Uttar Pradesh in 2001. She had also extended clemency to two other
convicts who had gang raped and then brutally killed the 10-year old
daughter of a jailor in the jail premises in Madhya Pradesh in 1996.
Being a woman did nothing to stop her from letting off such inhuman
criminals. So, why should we believe politicians when they say that they
understand the grief and suffering merely because they have daughters
or are women?

Politicians have to be judged by their action. Let’s look at that
action. When the street protests assumed a huge dimension in the middle
of last week, the Prime Minister issued a statement that he understood
the anger of the protesters, adding that the agitation was justified.
Later, various other politicians in the UPA, from Ms Sonia Gandhi down,
echoed similar sentiments. All of them promised action. And that action
came, to be fair to them. On Saturday, more a dozen Metro stations were
shut down so that protesters could not reach in large numbers at India
Gate and Raisina Hill to conduct their peaceful demonstrations. Despite
this, people in thousands found their way to both these locations. As
the crowd continued to swell, the police began swinging their canes
recklessly and beating up the gathering. Even on that Saturday, senior
Congress leaders continued to believe in the agitation!

On Sunday, there was further proof of that solidarity and appreciation
of the protesters’ movement. Section 144 was imposed in Delhi to prevent
the assembly of people. More Metro stations in the proximity of India
Gate and Raisina Hill were closed for ‘security reasons’. (They remained
closed on Monday and Tuesday as well.) Despite all these repressive
measures, huge numbers arrived at India Gate and began their protest. It
was one of this season’s coldest days and the police let loose water
cannons and dozens of rounds of teargas shells on the protesters,
besides indulging in the usual lathi-charge. Beginning from around three
in the afternoon, the security forces went on a rampage, under the
pretext that they had to contain an unruly mob which had infiltrated the
peaceful gathering and was damaging public property and resorting to
violence. It is true that sections of the protesters had turned violent,
but they could have been easily isolated and dealt with. Had the
security forces done that and identified who these unruly elements were,
perhaps the Congress would have had reasons to be embarrassed by the
expose.

Despite all the repressive measures which the Government has taken, the
regime cannot break the spirit of the protesters. Nor can it get away
by sitting on the fence on issues which require a firm stand. In the
initial days of the protest, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit
maintained a grim silence. But she sought to blame the Union Ministry of
Home Affairs for the incident after the agitation gained massive
proportions and cries of “Sheila Dikshit hai hai!” grew as loud as
“Sonia Gandhi hai hai” and “Delhi Police hai hai”. Miraculously, a
letter written by Congress MP and her son Sandeep Dikshit to the Centre
appeared in a section of the electronic media. The letter raised
questions on certain appointments the Lt Governor had made to the police
force. Since the Delhi Police reports to the Centre, it is directly
accountable to the Lt Governor. And now, Ms Dikshit has openly
questioned the strong-arm tactics which Delhi Police employed with the
protesters and their conduct while recording the statement of the rape
victim.

Clearly then, although the political class is rattled, it is still
unable to respond in a fitting manner. The demand to have a special
session of Parliament, the demand to include the death penalty in laws
that deal with rape and amend other related provisions, the demand to
initiate firm action against top Delhi Police brass, the demand to
sensitise police to help them handle crimes against women effectively —
these are not unjustified. Yet the Government has refused to offer any
roadmap to walk that path. As always, it believes that the crisis will
play out and subside over time, and that everything will be back to
normal. But it will not be back to normal for the girl who has been
brutalised (we hope she lives), for her family members, and for all
those hundreds of victims of rape across the country who still wait for
justice while the police, the prosecution and the judiciary take their
time to deal with their horror. Token assurances and symbolic gestures
are no longer enough.

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About Me

Born in Allahabad district of Uttar Pradesh.
Brought up in Coimbatore, Cochin and Goa.
Lived in Goa for 36 years: from 1968-2004.
Worked in various positions at the Goa-based English dailies: The Navhind Times and OHerald.
Was Editor of a Goa-based TV news channel Goa 365.
Served as Media Advisor to the Goa Chief in 2002-03.
Served as Director of Information and Publicity, Government of Goa (2002-03).
Now, based in Delhi and working for The Pioneer as Senior Editor